Bing Ads announced today that it has tightened account security measures by adopting extended validation SSL certificates for its website, and added a two-step verification process for users accessing Bing Ads via a Microsoft account. According to the announcement, Bing Ads began implementing an extended validation certificate a few weeks ago: All communications with Bing […]
Several SEO companies have agreed to stop publishing fake online reviews, and will also pay penalties ranging from $2,500 to almost $100,000 as part of settlement announced today with the New York attorney general’s office. The AG’s year-long investigation ultimately caught 19 companies involved in writing and posting fake online reviews, including numerous small businesses. […]
In the past month, Google quietly made a change aimed at encrypting all search activity — except for clicks on ads. Google says this has been done to provide “extra protection” for searchers, and the company may be aiming to block NSA spying activity. Possibly, it’s a move to increase ad sales. Or both. Welcome […]
A question that PPC account managers frequently have to deal with is, “Why are we paying for this traffic? Aren’t we going to get that traffic anyway?” It’s a fair question, even if it is completely annoying to hear for the twentieth time by the twentieth new accounting manager you’ve had to break in. No […]
At the start of August, David Mihm published the findings of the latest installment of the Local Search Ranking Factors Survey. This year, the breakdown & presentation of survey results has been taken to a new level. Ranking factors are grouped by signal type (e.g., Place Page Signals), then further broken down by result type […]
As Google continues to look for new monetization opportunities outside of its core AdWords and AdSense traffic, might it consider entering the SEM agency space? Though it sounds preposterous, history suggests that it might not be as crazy as it sounds. But let’s put history aside for a moment and talk about money. Google’s total […]
Today, Bing released a detailed overview of its Page Zero experience, a new search feature that delivers deep links directly from the search box with shortcuts to relevant information associated with the search term. According to the announcement, the new feature gives “best” auto-completion suggestions for a query, as well as displaying “rich information” related […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: When It Comes To Google, Microsoft’s Ballmer Is Still Fighting Old Battles With Old Tactics I’ve watched Microsoft fight Google in search for a very long time. Bing has come a […]
I’ve watched Microsoft fight Google in search for a very long time. Bing has come a long way, and I’ve been pleased to see a strong competitor emerge. But Microsoft hasn’t actually hurt Google’s share. It’s only robbed from its partner, Yahoo. So how’s Microsoft going to beat Google? Comments from departing CEO Steve Ballmer […]
A new Nielsen study on consumer trust in advertising shows trust in search ads has risen since 2007. Nearly half (48 percent) of consumer respondents now say they trust search ads, that’s up 14 percent since 2007. This is certainly good news for search advertisers. In more good news, with the exception of ads in […]
The added features Bing Ads introduced to Location Extensions in June are now available to all advertisers in the US. If you’re running mobile or local paid search campaigns, you’ll want to be sure your location extension data is comprehensive to take advantage of these features. Here’s a look at the latest location extensions in […]
I made a mistake. It was a classic SEO blunder. Don’t judge me — it was one that you (and almost every other SEO) has probably made as well. What did I do? I allowed a client to sign a contract without fully vetting them first. I didn’t ask the right questions, and I wasn’t […]
Paid Advertising Platforms are growing exponentially on what seems like a weekly basis. What once was Keywords + Ad + Bid = Money has now become a full-time job. Bid adjustments, rules, remarketing, extensions, day-parting, local or geographic targeting, modified broad match, and more — the vocabulary alone is a struggle for small business owners […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Official: Google Rolling Out App Launcher, Flat Logo The testing is over. Google has confirmed its plans to add a new app launcher to the main Google navigation bar that will […]
The testing is over. Google has confirmed its plans to add a new app launcher to the main Google navigation bar that will give users quicker access to other Google products. It’s the same grid-style app launcher that many users will already recognize from Android devices and Chromebook computers. Google has been testing this nav […]
The Bing Ads UI has long been plagued by obfuscation. Yes, there have been improvements such as the addition of performance trends and change history visualization, but there hasn’t be a way to compare performance data without downloading, formatting and analyzing reports on your own. Finally, Bing Ads is working on a solution. Today the […]
Since the launch of the Google “Local Carousel” in June, SEOs and marketers have been trying to reverse engineer the ranking variables that elevate listings into that hallowed ground. Mike Blumenthal offered a good early roundup of stories and analysis. Now Digital Marketing Works (DMW) has conducted an extensive study of what might be called “Carousel […]
RKG has long been interested in the question of online to offline spillover. We’ve also long been critical of the sloppy, ill-conceived tests that have misled many advertisers on this spillover in the past. We’ve recently participated with a few of our retail-chain clients on more carefully designed studies to get a more responsible answer […]
If your organization is like most, the process of establishing KPIs to track natural search probably looks something like this: “Put together high-level KPIs such as X and Y, and run it by a few key stakeholders.” At first glance, that process likely seems to have worked pretty well — after all, few stakeholders make […]
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) today accused Google and other search engines of playing “a significant role” in directing consumers to pirated movies and TV shows, with a special callout for the amount of Google searches that lead to infringing material. It’s the latest volley in a long-running battle between Hollywood and the […]
Apple’s new iOS 7 mobile operating system officially rolled out today, and with it, the Siri assistant is finally out of beta. The most significant change to Siri is arguably that it no longer taps into Google for searches. As expected, a deal with Microsoft now makes Bing the default in Siri. Twitter also gets a […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: What Makes You A Best In Class SEO? Survey Says… Today, at Conductor’s annual client summit, #C3NY, Director of Research and Search Engine Land contributor Nathan Safran unveiled research from a […]
Today, at Conductor’s annual client summit, #C3NY, Director of Research and Search Engine Land contributor Nathan Safran unveiled research from a pool of over 380 enterprise search marketers and SEO professionals, analyzing common behaviors which lead to success. Three key areas where the most successful search marketers thrived? Content, reporting excellence, internal education and evangelism. The […]
Bid Simulator, the AdWords tool that shows click, impression and cost estimates, now includes conversion predictions. The Bid Simulator displays estimates for both 1-per-click and many-per-click conversions you might have received with different bids. As with the other estimated data, the conversion estimates are based on clicks from a recent seven day period. So far, […]
As of today, advertisers in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam have access to Bing Ads. The roll out of Bing Ads means marketers in these countries can use one platform to advertise on both Yahoo and Bing. It also expands the geographic targeting capabilities for existing customers to reach users in Southeast Asia. Microsoft […]
Remarketing has been around for a few years on the display side of marketing, but has only recently picked up momentum and adoption on the paid search side. From what I’ve seen, remarketing is something that companies sometimes do really right… and other times do completely wrong. Here, I’ll share the main things we’ve learned […]
Bing rolled out an update to its iPhone app late Tuesday night that features a new homepage menu, additional sharing options and improved syncing across platforms. Bing 4.1 for iPhone features a new homepage menu that’s accessible from the bottom of the app display. It offers quicker access to Bing Maps Bing Image Search Bing […]
Move over Emma Watson. Actress Lily Collins has taken the title as 2013’s most dangerous celebrity to search for online. McAfee, the security technology company, is out with its seventh annual most dangerous celebrities survey, which uses the company’s SiteAdvisor site ratings to measure what percentage of search results for popular celebrities lead to risky […]
Today’s Google logo is an interactive image of Foucault’s Pendulum, a device created by French physicist Léon Foucault who was born on this date 194 years ago in Paris, France. The Foucault Pendulum was the first experimental demonstration of the Earth’s rotation on its axis. Showing the rotation of the plane of oscillation of a […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Google Patent Search Expands To China, Germany, Canada & WIPO Google announced they have expanded their database of patent documents within Google Patent Search to include patent documents from an additional […]
Google announced they have expanded their database of patent documents within Google Patent Search to include patent documents from an additional set of agencies. The new patent agencies included in Google Patent search include China, Germany, Canada, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Since the database now includes patent documents from around the world, […]
At SMX Advanced, I presented results from a study we had done that convinced me that links in shares from Google Plus and Facebook behave like traditional web-based links. My statements at SMX Advanced were later disputed by Matt Cutts during his keynote interview by Danny Sullivan, leading to a live discussion — Matt even […]
I was recently asked how to make sure that each link you build (however you do it) remains a safe one — and I have to say that I truly had no idea how to answer that. A few years back, my answer would have been different than it is today. Remember when we all said […]
This evening, Microsoft announced and has started to roll out a range of new features for Bing — some cosmetic, some more structural. Prominent among them is a new logo and identity, which is symbolic of Bing’s deeper integration across the Microsoft’s products and devices. The company has devoted a lengthy blog post to the […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the Web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Ads Releases New API, Version 9 Microsoft rolled out version 9 of the Bing Ads API for developers to start using immediately. The API will include the following additions to […]
Microsoft rolled out version 9 of the Bing Ads API for developers to start using immediately. The API will include the following additions to functionality: Bulk upload and download methods for campaign management which utilize comma separated values (CSV) and tab separated values (TSV) as the data interchange formats. These data formats are identical to the formats that will be […]
In a recent video answer by Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, Google said that spammers rarely use multiple or mass number of ccTLDs in an effort to spam. This comment came from Matt Cutts when he answered a question on if it is duplicate content to have the same content on an IPv4 […]
In a move somewhat reminiscent of the back end merger of Yahoo and Microsoft’s search engines, the number three and four search sites in China are set to combine assets and cross-promote in a nearly $450 million deal writes ZDNet. The deal involves Chinese online portal Tencent’s Soso search engine and Sohu’s Sogou. The latter […]
There’s a lot of literature out there discussing what local businesses can do to improve their websites, ranging from boosting search visibility through targeted keywords to leveraging content like video to keep visitors engaged. But what’s often missing from these conversations are broader discussions about the importance of analytics in providing local businesses with ongoing and targeted […]
9to5mac.com reports Apple has quietly taken the beta label off of their voice search feature, Siri. If you look at the iOS 7 Siri, the page makes no mention of beta anymore. The old iOS 6 version had the beta label on it, but iOS 7 Siri has removed that label. Here is the iOS […]